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Sunday, September 30, 2012

What did you do this weekend? I had a very productive three days, Saturday was spent in my official lounging gear creating this beauty for next Saturday's 2 Hour Tulip Bag

This is a standard size bag, we will be making the next size up which supposedly you can fit a volleyball into. I had great fun making it and guess what, it only took 2 hours! We have 3 spaces left so give us a call or text me. The class is on Saturday from 12:00 to 3:00 or thereabouts. You will need 1 yard of fabric for handles and outside of bag and 1 yard of fabric for the interior. You will also need 2/3 of yard of pellon fusible fleece and 1/2 yard of pellon decor bond for interfacing. The shop has fusible fleece and decor bond so don't panic if you don't have any.

We are running two workshops in November, you can either come for a half day or a full day and we will be creating some fun and quick gifts for family and friends. Here is one of the items that I created for the craft day and it is made using 1/2 yard of christmas fabric and some Soft and Stable wadding. This is really fun to make and super fast, what a great way to package some of your home baking as a gift for a neighbor or teacher!

Before the string is added to the top

Cute!

The bucket handle can be rotated backward and forward for easy filling and easy emptying!

Today we had great fun with our introductory Applique class, as always there were alot of laughs and some serious comsumption of chocolate chip cookies. We are very lucky to have such a great group of customers and that they bring their joy of quilting to every session!

We are getting ready for the Knit n Stitch show at the RDS the first of November thru the fourth. We will be located in Booth N11 which is ironic since that is the location of our home and shop!!
Happy Sewing!
Anne Marie

Sunday, September 9, 2012

I thought I would continue tonight with my fun project, I was working on it briefly late this afternoon and rather than wait and forget about a follow up post, I decided to make a post tonight. Remember I told you that after you add the third piece you would press them open and then trim. Well, here is a photo of the block with the ruler on it before I trim.

I would line up the centre V with the pieced block and you can see the dashed line is your 1/4" seam allowance. By using this specialty ruler you get a perfect square, no points cut off! But no specialty ruler is going to work unless your original cutting and sewing is straight and precise.

Okay, you have trimed all your pieced blocks, what can be do with them. I have a few photos of blocks that I have placed on the cutting mat.

This is how it would look if the blocks are sewn side by side.

You would have some great secondary patterns by sewing them this way.

Here is a possible sashing and post setting and as you can see I turned my four squares in the opposite direction as the photo above. I prefer the above photo but I thought you might like to see it positioned differently. Also, if you wanted to really get complicated you could have alternate colours for your outer triangles. So instead of all white diamonds, your diamonds would be two colours. I think the design possibilites could be fun to explore.

I will leave you with this and will hopefully have more to show you later in the week.

Take a look at our workshop listings, a nice selection of classes are on offer as well as some quilt weekends. Treat yourself to some fun and bring a friend along!

Saturday, September 8, 2012

I wanted to do something today, a project for the pure pleasure of sewing and playing with bright colours! I have been playing with this ruler off and on but hadn't quite ever settled on a colour scheme that I really had the urge to play with. Sew, here we go! I am a huge Eleanor Burns fan as many of you may know. I think her books are marvelous, especially for beginners. She leaves nothing to chance, she goes into great detail about everything from choice of colours and why, as well as all the tools that you will need. The Quilt in The Day Books show you every step no matter how big or small the steps may be, the books are well thought out and produced.

Here is the ruler I was playing with today, a 4 1/2" On-Point Ruler. You can use either a charm pack of precuts which is 42 5" squares or you can use 10 Layer Cake squares which are 10" square precuts. I made my own 10" squares as well as a few 5" squares.

Specialty rulers are great fun to have, some are more practical than others but like all tools if you take good care of them they will last forever. There are people that will tell you that you don't need them, you can use cardboard or paper templates. After 28 years of doing patchwork, I can honestly tell you that cardboard and paper don't stand up well with a rotary cutter and your finished blocks will be be inconsistent.

I love using a new ruler, it gives me an opportunity to try different shapes and it challenges me to think about all the different uses and the design possibilities.

I decided to follow the pattern on the ruler, a way of testing it to see if I can get the same results that the ruler claims you can get.

Here is a photo of the pieces for the block. The center piece is the fabric from the Layer Cake or Charm Square. I chose to use a white on white background fabric since the undertones of the fabrics that I am using are white.

Do you see how I trimmed the 1/4" corner off the white? This will allow me to line up my triangles with ease without having to figure out if the overhang of the the white triangle is an exact 1/4". Are you confused now... trust me it took me years to figure out that if I trimmed my triangles when working with say a 60 degree triangle, I would get perfect results.

In the above photo the white triangle is right side facing down and the trimmed corner is even with the edge of the brown fabric. If I had not trimmed off the corner I would have been trying to guess whether the pointed was a 1/4" above the brown and if I didn't get it right! God help us, the seam ripper would be out and I would be losing time with every set of triangles!!!!

When I open up the two pieces I have even sides. WooHoo!!!! It's the simple things in life that make me happy.

The blocks go together very fast, I recommend chain piecing. Life takes on a new dimension when you start chain piecing, don't be afraid to give it a try. One of the benefits of chain piecing is that you keep your work very organized and therefore you piece quicker but the biggest benefit is you don't waste as much thread!

After pressing my first two pieces open, I add the third piece, then press that open and here we are! Actually this picture was taken after I used the ruler to trim all four sides down to the correct size.

This is what I am going to leave you with right now. This is how I left the cutting table this evening. Will do some more playing tomorrow! Stay tuned for more.

Tomorrow is a big day, we have a girls u-12 football county final. Way to go Clonee, you girls are outstanding!!!!!! And then we are going to watch the All Ireland Hurling Championship, as the granddaughter of a proud Galway woman.... UP GALWAY!!!!!!!!!!

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About Me

An American living, quilting and raising three gorgeous children in Co. Wexford Ireland. My DH and I are fortunate to be living on a beautiful sheep farm, running a B&B and operating a quilt shop, all the while keeping our sense of humor!